Justice Department Defends ACORN Funding Ban

The Justice Department is seeking to reverse a judge's ruling last week that the law to defund ACORN is unconstitutional.

Federal District Judge Nina Gershon last week put a preliminary injunction on the funding ban, which was pushed by Republicans in Congress in the wake of the hidden camera scandal that embarrassed ACORN. Gershon agreed with a claim by ACORN that the bill was unconstitutional because it singled out a specific entity for punishment. Today, the Justice Department filed papers in federal court arguing for a reversal of that decision, according to a press release from Rep. Darrel Issa (R-CA) trumpeting the news.

Though the move appears to put the Obama administration on the side of the GOP in opposition to ACORN, it's not quite that simple. When a law passed by Congress and signed by the president is challenged by the courts, it's hardly unusual for the Justice Department to defend it. Still, at a time when progressives aren't exactly singing the White House's praises, the optics aren't great.

Issa, who has led the GOP charge against ACORN, had this week urged DOJ in a letter(pdf) to weigh in immediately on Judge Gershon's ruling. In response to the news that it has, he released the following typo-strewn statement:

Given the numerous ongoing investigations being conducted surrounding ACORN's criminal activities, the federal government will and should vigorously defend what the President signed and Congress overwhelmingly passed--a bipartisan recognition that ACORN is not fit to receive federal funds to perform duties on behalf of the American people. There is no plausible way we can allow a left-wing activist Judge usurp (sic) the authority of the President and Congress in an effort to bypass Constitutional authority so that a criminal organizations (sic) plagued by criminal accusations can have a court-ordered (sic) to entitlement to taxpayer dollars.